Brooklyn Film Festival 2014 Transcends Formula To Deliver Fascinating Films From Around The World

The Brooklyn Film Festival, the largest and longest running competitive, international film festival in Brooklyn, will run its 17th annual edition from May 30 through June 8 in Williamsburg, at indieScreen and Windmill Studios NYC. Don't let the festival's title mislead you; although Brooklyn filmmakers of course have a prominent place at the fest, its scope expands far beyond the borough to include films and filmmakers from around the world. Over 100 narrative and documentary features and shorts will screen during the festival, guaranteeing an impressive eclecticism in its selections.

Each year's festival is given a titled theme; this year's theme is "Formula." The festival's press release articulates their thinking behind this theme:

BFF Executive Director Marco Ursino said of the 2014 edition, "Our theme this year deals with an enigma: Is there a winning Formula to communicate with the audience and ultimately create a successful independent film? We ponder this complex question by thinking about the chemistry that might ultimately achieve such a formula. Do formulas apply exclusively to big budget filmmaking, are there formulas for independent filmmakers, and is there such a thing as formula-free filmmaking? How does a project preserve its independent spirit when the story is told by adopting proven storytelling formulas? And what has the independent film movement done in recent years to adapt new methods of filmmaking? We encourage our filmmakers, audiences, industry guests, Brooklyn, all New Yorkers and the rest of the world to stir the ingredients in this potent and perplexing formula."

If the films I was able to preview are any indication, it will be very difficult to identify any sort of formula in these films; their filmmaking styles and approaches to their subject matter are truly original and often quite surprising.

Click through the gallery below to read my takes on a few of this year's selections. For more information on these and other festival films, visit the Brooklyn Film Festival website.

I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS (Leah Meyerhoff)

This film, one of the festival's two opening night films, deftly transcends the clichés often inherent in Meyerhoff’s chosen modes of storytelling – the coming-of-age story and the road movie – by its intriguing use of autobiography and its affectingly personal feel. Davina (Natalia Dyer) is a teenager stuck in a sleepy town, having to care for her disabled mother (Toni Meyerhoff, the director’s mother).

One day she catches sight of Sterling (Peter Vack), an older punk rocker and skateboarder whom she instantly identifies as the man of her dreams. They soon hook up, and she loses her virginity to Sterling. Although he is initially cold towards her afterward, he soon warms to her again, and they set off on a road trip, the destination being “anywhere but here.”

Davina often retreats into a fantasy world of unicorns, princesses and dragons (rendered in the film by whimsical stop-motion animation), but as they travel together and their money dwindles, and Sterling reveals darker and more volatile sides of himself, Davina longs to return home. Strong performances by both Dyer and Vack, as well as its appealingly dreamy atmosphere, prevent this film from being unbearably precious, and instead render it a compelling portrait of a young girl’s emotional rites of passage.

(May 30, 8pm)

INTIMATE SEMAPHORES (T.J. Misny)

The other opening night film is this slim anthology (56 minutes total) consisting of three short films, each with separate titles and credits, each featuring female protagonists. Even though they are all made by the same director, Intimate Semaphores suffers from the problem of unevenness that afflicts most omnibus films. However, it improves as it goes along, and ends with its strongest episode.

“Helberger in Paradise” stars Kate Lyn Sheil as a woman who goes to a funeral of a female lover to make good on a promise she made to perform an anarchic act there. She argues and has conflicts with the cab driver (Musto Pelinkovicci) who takes her there. While Sheil delivers a typically riveting performance, this is the weakest entry, and feels more like an incomplete sketch rather than a fully realized short.

“High and Dry” features the great Greek actress Ariane Labed (Attenberg, Alps) as a photographer who’s failing eyesight may be an indicator of her lack of normal human empathy. Again, while Labed is fine, the short has an intriguing concept but is frustratingly inconclusive.

“The Crumb of It” ends the anthology on its strongest note, starring Jocelin Donahue as a comedian whose relationship to her dessert chef boyfriend (Chioke Nassor) is threatened by the fact that cake makes her physically ill. The most complete-feeling of all the shorts, it’s a funny, witty piece, capped off with a literal punch.

(May 30, 8:30pm; June 6, 10:30pm)

JEEPNEY (Esy Casey)

This documentary explores the fascinating history behind the “jeepney,” the most popular form of public transportation in the Philippines. Jeepneys are WWII-era US military jeeps converted and modified for public transport. These vehicles are both iconic symbols of the country, as well as vessels that transmit the complex history of the Philippines, and its equally complex relationship with the Unites States. Jeepneys are also famous for their lavish decorations, for which the creators of these designs take inspiration from personal details of their lives as well as expressions of their culture, and in some cases, acknowledgement of the vehicles' status as physical symbols of America’s presence.

Casey follows the stories of jeepney drivers and their decorators, and the film goes beyond just being a depiction of charming local color. Many more serious issues are raised, such as the impact of multinational oil companies on the economic well-being of ordinary citizens, who are forced to pay onerous oil taxes, while these same companies are allowed to operate tax-free. Casey documents protests and strikes that call attention to these issues, and in just an hour’s running time, she impressively creates a potent snapshot of a country in cultural and economic flux.

(June 5, 8pm; June 8, 6pm)

UNPLUGGED (Mladen Kovacevic)

This is a most unusual kind of music documentary, with a most unusual kind of music instrument. One would never think that tree leaves could be considered mellifluous-sounding musical instruments, but this is apparently very much the case in Serbia. In this impressionistic and very humorous film, we follow a few musicians who practice this very old and traditional form of music.

Well beyond their impressive musicianship, they are quite colorful characters. Vera is a former “spy,” in her words – most likely having worked as a private detective – who is now retired and spends her days looking for suitable leaves to play on. Josip is an amateur musician par excellence; he has mastered a number of traditional Serbian instruments and can rattle off all 23 varieties of them. He has even invented a modified version of a traditional recorder-like instrument. But one instrument eludes his grasp: the leaf. He tries incessantly to get good sounds out of them, consults with experts, and watches video performances. However, nothing seems to work, and he lives in amused and easygoing, but clearly evident, frustration.

Kovacevic’s lyrical film beautifully expresses the primacy of music in Serbian culture, where every person, from the youngest child to the oldest man or woman, seems to be a born musician.